Cosplay is not a mere fad. It is a community and an art form, and it’s not going away any time soon.

Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, Friday

It’s 10 a.m., and the show floor of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) just opened to the public. Samantha Romero helps Brett Hodgkinson adjust his mask. They are dressed as characters from Marvel Comics: she as Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy) and he as Iron Spider. As they enter, they are surrounded by fans waiting to take pictures. They have practiced their poses for the camera–action shots worthy of a comic book cover.

Though Samantha’s Spider-Gwen costume was custom-printed, generally she makes her own from scratch. She spent three weeks cutting hundreds of feathers from poster board for her Hawkgirl costume. Her dream ultimate costume is a suit of Daedric armor from the Elder Scrolls videogame series. Brett hopes to create a full Iron Man suit from fiberglass soon.

They started cosplaying about three years ago. Samantha was inspired to make costumes by the kids at the conventions they attended.

“I saw how much kids loved to see their favorite characters and I wanted to be their favorite character,” she says. “I have a couple of Disney Princess outfits that I love wearing to kids’ day. The little girls just run up to you and you sit on the ground for hours, and they are so happy.”

Brett and Samantha joined a cosplay group, Get Geek’d, from Lansing, MI, and attend around six conventions a year with them. The group gives them more opportunities to wear their costumes, and members help each other create and improve their cosplay.

Brett Hodgkinson as Iron Spider

Cosplay, the act of dressing up as a character, isn’t limited to just anime/manga characters or superheroes. It has been embraced by fans of movies and television especially science fiction and fantasy, videogames, western-style animation such as Disney and Pixar, and even classic literature.

For cosplay, costumes can be as simple as putting on a suit and pinning a fake FBI badge to a lapel, to as elaborate as mechanized robot suits.

Though there are professional cosplayers who model and enter international contests, the majority create costumes simply out of love. It can be an expensive hobby; even a simple costume can cost $200 in materials, though award-winning costumes can cost thousands. This doesn’t include the time spent researching, designing, shopping and creating the piece, of course.

And companies are taking notice. Simplicity Creative Group had a booth at C2E2 and now offers a variety of patterns specifically for cosplay. Custom fabric retailer Spoonflower offers fabrics that mimic special textures and patterns for specific characters, like the Daleks from Doctor Who. This year, around 20 cosplay-related panels were offered at C2E2. Most were workshops, hosted by cosplay group We Are Cosplay, that discussed costume design from wigs and makeup to sewing and leatherworking.

An area outside of the show is designated “Fan Village.” It is a quiet, spacious refuge from the chaos of the show floor. There is room for kids to run and play, and tables and chairs for weary adults. Some attendees even nap in giant bean bag chairs. In this oasis, We Are Cosplay set up shop.

One reality of cosplay is that it is very inconvenient. Many cosplayers change from their street clothes in restrooms to avoid wearing their costumes on public transportation. They may have coats and umbrellas as well as large bags of costume supplies. Some rent rooms in the attached hotel, preferring to use part of their convention budget to pay for convenience. In the ladies’ room, I encountered a cosplayer with a small wardrobe malfunction: a piece that had been hot-glued to her unitard had come undone. I had safety pins in my costume bag, so I helped her pin the piece back on while other attendees watched along.

As artists and cosplayers themselves, We Are Cosplay saw a need for fan support. Their tables are the emergency room for costumes and are filled with different kinds of tape, super glues, hot glue guns, pins, markers, mirrors. They provide and monitor changing rooms with doors that lock for safety and privacy. Many of the cosplay workshops are held on a nearby stage.

Paul Heid, creative director, said the group wanted to have a community that was a “throwback to the 70s art community,” where members could share ideas and “grow as creatives. Once you start getting involved with other creatives, you can’t help but feed off of that.” Their organization also does volunteer work, such as bringing comics to kids at Lurie Children’s Hospital on Free Comic Book Day (the first Saturday in May). They also occasionally host social events, and this year they organized around 50 cosplayers to march in the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Paul was attracted to cosplay from his childhood love of Spider-Man. “I always had the idea of dressing up as Spider-Man and doing random good deeds in the neighborhood, like go cut somebody’s lawn.” His Spider-Man costume reflects his heritage: he changed the original spider symbol to an orb-weaver spider indigenous to Thailand, making his costume “a little different from other people’s [costumes].”

C2E2, Saturday

Joseph Ahn is working the crowd as Joffrey Baratheon. Fans approach him, eager to take a picture with the villain from the Game of Thrones television show and books. They kneel, pretending to cower as he aims his crossbow.

Joseph Anh as Joffrey Baratheon

“I love how much people hate him,” Joseph explains. “the vitriol that surrounds this character. People pass him off as a psychopath, but in reality he has too much fear, he’s too cowardly to be a psychopath. He has so much power to be a terrible person, but he is so weak. It’s fun interacting with people [as Joffrey].”

This costume took Joseph about six months to make. He realized he simply didn’t have the time to do it all at once (“Plan ahead,” he advises cosplayers). Some of the accessories, such as his crown, were cast metal, and it took time to find a foundry that would do the job.

As we talk, a woman dressed as Margaery Tyrell, another character from Game of Thrones,approaches. They laugh, delighted to see each other. I ask if they are together, and they exclaim “no” in unison. They pose in character for photographs, Joffrey glaring and Margaery regally holding his arm, but part as new friends.

“There’s something great about being in a community where people get to be nice to each other, and everyone is smiling. It’s fun,” he says.

Cosplay for the convention culminates with the Crown Championships of Cosplay. In its first year, the competition was simply a costume contest that anyone could sign up for the day of. The prizes were collectibles, toys and comics. It is now the final competition for the year in ReedPOP’s international contest with celebrity judges and over $10,000 in cash prizes. Contestants must apply at least a month in advance with a completed costume. The applicants who are accepted are judged before the main competition. Those who make that cut are brought on stage before an audience.

This year, regional winners were brought in from eight countries. From Austria, the impressive Wheeljack was flown in to complete. The costume is a massive Transformer robot complete with sound effects and robotic voice. The cosplayer inside walks on stilts and towers over the crowd. Like the Iron Man Hulkbuster armor, another costume in contest, the costume is so large that it requires a team of handlers to monitor and support it.

Though she has made other costumes, this is Monica Gonzales’ first competition. Her costume is Galacta, Marvel Comics character who is the daughter of the villain Galactus. Not only was it her first time applying for the contest, it was the first time she worked with LEDs and Worbla (a thermoplastic modelling material).

Monica Gonzales as Galacta

Monica spent about a year researching her costume idea. “We have a lot of similarities. This character is always hungry. I’m always hungry,” she jokes.

Monica adapted the costume to her aesthetic. In the comics, Galacta usually wears a miniskirt, but she designed a floor-length hoopskirt. The front of the skirt is the earth made with over 800 squares of blue and green tulle; on the back, LEDs form stars and planets.

Monica explains, “this was the first time I wanted to compete in a large-scale professional cosplay [contest]. Before I would make my own costumes but [] nothing on this scale. I had a job that wouldn’t allow me that flexibility to have time to really make anything. So this time I have the job that would allow me to do [this].”

“I’m an accountant. I got to do something else besides crunch numbers, right?”

C2E2, Sunday

Sunday at C2E2 is family day, and the aisles are choked with strollers. Toddlers pose for pictures with Disney princesses, who stay in character during each encounter. The likenesses are eerily accurate, from wig to shoes.

Just outside of Fan Village, the 501st Legion have their tables. The 501st, also known as “Vader’s Fist,” is an organization of Star Wars fans who create costumes of the various Imperial troops and major villains. The staff of the booth represent the Midwest Garrison, one of the regional units of the Legion. On their table are pamphlets about the Legion and trading cards of their members in costume. Behind them are various styles of stormtrooper helmets.

As I chat with a Legion member, her eyes widen. “Uh oh, the boss is here!” I see Darth Vader approaching.

For the benefit of the children around the booth, the staff stay in character and pretend to be intimidated. It isn’t difficult; the cosplayer is tall and imposing, and his costume is very convincing. Even so, children surround him, and he then stops to take pictures with them at a Star Wars backdrop.

Eugene Almazan says he and his wife Sandra joined the 501st for their son, Alex, who is a fan of Star Wars. Eugene is an Imperial Gunner, while Sandra and Alex are Jawas. Nearby, a few kids disguised as Jawas swarm a life-sized R2D2. Eugene explains the membership process. The applicant must provide photos of the costume from different angles to show its craftsmanship.

The costume doesn’t need to be perfect, but it does need to fit the standards. Accuracy is emphasized.

The process seems intimidating, but he stresses that members are helpful to novices. Some types of armor are available as kits that can be cut and shaped to size.

“Even for someone 5’1” tall?” I ask.

The staff thinks for a moment, then someone suggests, “maybe kids’ armor?”

Any Given Saturday…

Dara Williamson becomes an Orc for C2E2

On a cold and wet Saturday, Dara Williamson is transforming into an orc. The character, Greshka, is her own invention, a character she plays in a Live Action Role Playing game (LARP). In costume even her demeanor changes from her cheerful, friendly self to a glaring warrior.

“When you’re short, you have to let people know you mean business,” she says.

She describes a LARP as “a big game of pretend.” Unlike tabletop roleplaying games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, the players act out what their characters do and say. It’s like improv, but with more rules, props and costumes—and sometimes bashing each other with weapons. A few weekends a year, she goes to a campsite to game with 20-30 people for two days. Elaborate costumes like Dara’s are not required, but they are encouraged.

Greshka’s costume evolved over the years. When Dara first started, her armor was a simple leather coat. She later invested in leather armor and high-quality, weather-proof boots purchased at renaissance fairs. But most of the costume pieces were handmade from fabric remnants or recycled from other sources. Her rabbit fur cloak was rescued from someone else’s discarded costume.

Dara first cosplayed in high school with her friends at conventions like Anime Central (ACen). Her first costumes were anime characters she loved. Her mother, Judy Perlman, a talented seamstress and costumer, showed her how to design and sew the pieces (her advice for cosplayers: use upholstery fabrics for costumes, as those fabrics tend to be cheaper and sturdier). Dara’s house includes two work spaces with various tools, including an antique White Sewing Machine that can sew through leather.

Dara Williamson with sword

An integral part of her LARP game is a kind of stage combat requiring soft, light, safe weapons. After nearly destroying a mass-produced weapon, she wondered if she could make her own. Using her talents for sculpting and painting, she now has a small business making weapons and other props for roleplayers. Basic weapons range from $75-150, but she also carves custom weapons by request. All of the props are made by hand. The most elaborate thing she has created to date was the Buster Sword from Final Fantasy VII. Though the weapon is over six feet long, it weighs around two pounds.

“Why did you choose to play an orc?” I ask.

“I wanted to do an elaborate costume, but I wasn’t confident, either in myself, my appearance or my abilities,” she explains. Dara recasts her imperfections in new ways with her “elaborate, midriff-bearing, green-body-paint orc-girl costume. And it let me kind of reconnect with myself and see myself as a positive thing, as a positive being. Because, OK, this is mine, I own this. And it’s not perfect, it’s not what the media is telling me what I should have, but it fulfills my need. Some of it is about control. Some of it is about learning to let control go.”

Learning from Cosplay

I was surprised me to learn through these conversations about the proliferation of organized cosplay communities. Most cosplayers I spoke with are involved with a cosplay group, whether a local circle or an international organization. All of them have a generous spirit, too: while large groups like We Are Cosplay and the 501st Legion are involved with multiple charities, even individual cosplayers volunteer their time to mentor each other or to just entertain kids for a few hours.

The beauty of cosplay is that by pretending to be someone else, cosplayers find each other, and sometimes even themselves.

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Within fan communities, fannish norms, rules and behaviours have been discussed for years. Many fans are used to their topic of interest only being shared with a small number of people – their fellow fans, sometimes family and friends. But the number of more public stories about fans are on the rise. Fan studies as an area of serious academic analysis has been growing since the early 90s, and press interest in fans have been increasing year on year since at least the 2000s.

Interest in fandom and fan activity has been on the rise in the mainstream press over the last couple of years. Articles appear talking about fan studies as an ’emerging field’; magazines like The New Statesman analyse fan responses to Sherlock; and news sites like the BBC feature stories on how fan fiction is our new folklore. This more public interest is then focus of much discussion in fandom and academia, particularly when the (often unspoken) rules of fandom, like not making actors aware of fan works, are violated by people outside of the fandom community.

Two such instances are the topic of this article: what has become known as ‘Morangate’, where Caitlin Moran asked actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman to read from a piece of Sherlock slash fic at the premiere of The Empty Hearse, and ‘Theory of Ficgate’, where as part of an extra-curricular module on fan fiction university students were asked to leave critical comments on selected pieces of fic. While these instances are different regarding the fandom communities concerned – addressing slash writers in the audience and introducing students to the academic study of fanfiction – the end results were the same. Fans felt intruded upon, mocked and pathologised.

Fans are familiar with being pathologised– for fandom. However, the stereotype of the lonely geek in his parents’ basement or the stalker fangirl are slowly being replaced by analysis of fan responses to Doctor Who and the role that fans play in the revival of old texts. This new found interest and grudging respect, can be gratifying, but as ‘Morangate’ and ‘Theory of Ficgate’ demonstrate, this research – both by the popular press and inside the academy – has an impact on fans.

The fic Caitlin Moran asked Benedict and Martin to read was a piece of slash, written by a Sherlock fan and posted to fanfic archive Archive Of Our Own (AO3). In response, the fanfic writer shared a public post on Tumblr in which she talked about the effect of the event had on her – how she felt she was shamed for writing fan fiction, and more specifically erotic fan fiction about two fictional men.

The intention of the “comment on fanfic” assignment was to share a love of fan fiction, but the comments left by the participants in the class on the selected fics were, at times, condescending and borderline rude, showing no awareness of fannish norms and codes of conduct. Of course, the question many people will ask at this point is ‘so what?’.

Why do these particular scenarios and these particular fans deserve special consideration? This is a question we have to ask ourselves as fan studies scholars; it’s a question I ask myself whenever I do research. I don’t know that it necessarily has an easy answer, but I think it is inherently tied up with power and ethics and accountability.

What is crucial in both ‘Morangate’ and ‘Theory of fic gate’ is that none of the fans were asked permission for their involvement, and none of the instigators considered the effects on the fans. In other words, the fans were acted upon rather than able to determine their own actions. They were forced into the situation of having their work read and mocked, and having rude and unnecessary comments posted on their stories. In fandom and academia, one of the central issues debated in relation to these events was what constitutes private and public in the age of social media. The lines between these become increasingly blurred, asAngus Johnston writes:

The reality is that the boundary between private acts and public acts is blurry, and always has been. People do private stuff in public all the time, and while we often have a legal right to violate the privacy of those moments, mostly we don’t, because it’s understood that we shouldn’t. It’s understood that it’s a jerky thing to do.

A woman talking about an abortion with a friend in a café is a private act in a public space. A parent dealing with a toddler having a meltdown at the grocery store is a private act in a public space. We understand that recording these conversations to play in a pub later is something we shouldn’t do. Where the internet is concerned, we are still finding our feet. However, Twitter, as is Tumblr, is designed to be a public space. Users on each are able to password-protect their accounts to restrict who can see what they post, but the overwhelming majority of posts are open, searchable and shareable. In that sense it is perhaps easy to understand why a celebrity might think it okay to search for fanfic, or undergraduates to comment on fic.

As Kristina Busse notes, however, “simple dichotomies of private and public spaces seem to fall short of the more complicated realities of current social media experiences.”

Tumblr users can regard their posts as semi-private because they are speaking to a specific audience, in this case of fellow Sherlock fans, within a specific community which typically doesn’t receive much attention outside of the fandom. The Moran-used fic was thus posted as a private act in a public space, and Moran should not have shared that conversation.

What is murkier in ‘Theory of ficgate’, however, is the replies left by the Berkeley undergraduates on fic posted to AO3. Like Tumblr, AO3 is a public forum. It is not necessary to have an account there in order to leave kudos for writers or to post a comment. Members of the class, however, were required to create new accounts on Fanfiction.net and A03 for the purpose of the class. Additionally, one of theclass requirements was to post weekly reading reviews:

To show completion and comprehension of the readings, students will be required to submit a review on the last chapter assigned for each reading assignment. To receive credit, students must screen shot these reviews and email them […] no later than 5pm on the day prior to their relevant class.

Unlike Moran, then, who took fic from a fan archive and shared it to a wider audience, the Berkeley students were required to leave critical reviews on fic within the fannish community.

To return to my earlier analogies, we understand that joining the conversation to give our views on abortion, or interrupting the parent to critique tone of voice is something we shouldn’t do. These would be intrusions upon a private act even though that act takes place in public. Students in the Berkeley class, many of whom were fans themselves, entered fandoms that didn’t belong to them and posted critical reviews, rather than the softer ‘concrit’ that fannish norms dictate.

The main problem is that authors were receiving unsolicited critical comments from people outside of their fandom. […] The assignment to leave concrit has been completely discontinued. I realize this left many authors feeling attacked and unsafe— some students have expressed discomfort with the task as well— and I do want to formally apologize. Second, regarding the fact that students are reading fics outside of our fandoms, facilitators have changed the assignment accordingly. The original syllabus listing was organized by fanfic tropes, such as Alternate Universe, Crossovers, and our reading list now extends to fics within the student’s chosen fandom, so we may have appropriate context and knowledge of source material.

What neither Moran nor the course facilitators considered were the people behind the words were affected by seeing their work torn apart suddenly in public or a site they consider to be a safe space.

These actions are born of a privilege which sees the instigators’ actions – the laughs they’ll get from seeing a fic read at a BBC event or passing a course – as more important than seeing the fans as actual people with feelings. It comes from a privileging of the text before the person. Explaining the rationale behind the permissions policy in the journalTransformative Works and Cultures, Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson write

The general academic response in literature and media and film studies (which is where most academics citing fic would come from) is that texts are treated as independent of their authors. […] In contrast, we […] consider ourselves fans first. […] We are very, very concerned to ensure the privacy and security of fans and have given much thought to ethical considerations.

Typically in the humanities the focus is on the text. We perform textual analysis of books and films, and we think nothing of quoting an author without seeking their permission first. In the social sciences, though, the person is put first. It’s why we have ethics boards in universities and why we have to consider the repercussions for our research participants. There is not a simple dichotomy between social sciences and humanities, of course. My work falls squarely under the humanities banner, as done much fan studies, but we are asking permission of fans and seeking out ethical approval from institutions for our research. But privilege is still an issue which needs to be understood more fully in academia and we have to recognise the ways in which we, as well as the press, engage with fans.

To combat the privileging of the text before the fan we need to look at the culture that emerged with web 2.0: participatory.

This participatory culture is echoed in the name we give to the people we interview and survey – they are no longer research subjects but participants. Fans are participants in our research, and fans are engaged in participatory culture. If we want fans to continue engaging with us we need to be include them in our work and we need to do it ethically.

As a fan studies scholar, I believe that it’s important for research into fandom continues. I think fans can offer us insights into texts that literary studies on its own can’t; that modes of production and consumption are changing and fans are intimately involved in that; that fannish practices, behaviours and codes can offer us cultural insights.

And I think that both academic and popular study help us out with these things. Talking and writing about fans shouldn’t be done solely by the academy but researchers should ensure that fandom is researched ethically and fans are actually understood, not just examined.

The issues raised and lessons learned from ‘Morangate’ and ‘Theory of ficgate’ are still evolving. Both events raised awareness of attitudes to fans in wider circles: Moran’s actions were discussed in the mainstream press and the undergrad class was discussion by fan studies scholars. Fundamentally, these discussions contribute to the evolving nature of fan studies research and allow us as scholars to reflect on our behaviour and the effect it has on the communities we undertake research in, and often times are a part of. And just as us academics are driven by a love of our subject and become frustrated when we see it being treated lightly, so too do fans love their fandom and deserve our respect, not our laughter.

Bethan Jones is a lifelong X-Files fan and PhD candidate. Her PhD looks at cult TV, fandom and nostalgia, focusing on the X-Files and Twin Peaks revivals, and she has written extensively on fandom, gender and new media. Her work has been published in Transformative Works and Cultures, Sexualities and the Journal of Film and Television, and she was winner of the Missing Time category in the 2009 X-Files Universe fanfic writing competition.

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A comic book convention is not where you would plan to talk to your pre-teen about body autonomy, but discussions about harassment of women as they cosplay put consent on the agenda for a father-daughter outing at C2E2 last year. Wendy, age 11, pointed out the “Cosplay is not consent” to her dad as they entered McCormick Place convention center.

C2E2 is Chicago’s pop culture extravaganza that brings together fans of comic book characters, TV, sci-fi movies and even professional wrestling. Many attendees cosplay, or dress up like their favorite character, thus making my “Little Mermaid” tee shirt look fairly amateur. Wendy’s dad said it is important to discuss consent at these events. While she does not dress in provocative costumes, during her first C2E2 in a full body Totoro costume, Wendy was touched without consent. “As she gets older and she becomes a teenager it can become more of an issue.” Her dad notes that some of the blogs Wendy reads are very focused on “Cosplay is not consent” so it makes her think about it. These conversations have Wendy already thinking about consent at C2E2 and outside the convention center.

I met Wendy in line for the “Kick Ass Women of Marvel” panel. You would not think that a pre-teen would want to hang out at panels discussing topics like feminism, but that is what she and other young women did. They got up and asked hard-hitting questions of their feminist role models: Will we get to see how Peggy formed S.H.I.E.L.D. and if she incorporates women in leadership? Most of the questions by young women focused on trying to find life lessons from the actors. One young woman was heading off to college in the fall to major in engineering and wanted words of advice since she knew men would outnumber her. Other issues the women addressed at the panels included equal pay, learning that it is ok to not be a people-pleaser, saying no to roles that degrade women, standing up for yourself, raising boys to be feminists and loving yourself.

No one asked when the characters would get married, have kids, or other stereotypical female issues. Fans wanted to know how much more kick ass their favorite characters would be next season and how they could be kick ass in their own lives.

Women and girls have always been a part of comics culture, but their visibility is growing. Wendy already counts Thor: Goddess of Thunder as one of her favorite characters and when I talked to her, we still did not know who new Thor was! Thor’s writers have tackled the idea that feminism weakens comic culture inside the comic itself. The character Wendy cosplayed this year — Molly, from Lumberjanes — is another of her favorites, and now mine too. It’s like Buffy joins the Girls Scouts, where women in history are often cited. Sensation’s Women Wonder series has addressed the lack of women astronauts and women in combat roles. Adding a discussion about consent to fans of all genders is move evidence of how women’s growing roles is changing the community for the better.

So while Denver’s Comic-Con had a panel on women in comics without women, some fanboys cried over a woman becoming the new Thor and were outraged over the ecofeminist plot of “Fury Road,” anyone at C2E2 would know that women are a huge part of the fandom and they are not going anywhere. And we’re bringing feminism, too.

Veronica I. Arreola is a professional feminist, writer and mom. You can find her writing at Bitch Media and The Broad Side, as well as her own blog, Viva la Feminista. You can find her on Twitter at @veronicaeye.

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“Everything is about sex except sex: sex is about power” – Oscar Wilde.

When Random House signed E. L. James to a seven figure, multi-book deal for her Fifty Shades of Grey series in March 2012, it was a shot heard around the publishing world. Not only had fan fiction now become fair game as a method and expression of creativity, it had now become a lucrative vein of ore just sitting there waiting to mined by a myriad of publishing houses.

Although the story behind Fifty Shades is by now a familiar one of a forty-something mother of two becoming a worldwide sensation by writing Twilight fan fiction, the fever surrounding the series has still not died down. The trilogy spent an astonishing six months on top of the New York Times and Amazon best seller charts and, in turn, dominated the international and national consciousness. Undoubtedly, it is the erotic nature of the content that has drawn the most media attention to the series since its release. With one film adaptation already gracing our cinema screens – and two more in the pipeline – will this domination will be letting up any time soon?

The legacy of Fifty Shades of Grey – particularly in the adult entertainment industry – poses the question as to whether whether James’ best-seller is a positive and honest reflection of female sexuality and sexual experience. Particularly when taking into consideration its origins as fan fiction, and the narratives that these fan communities create.

The online community is acknowledged as a female-dominated space, and one of the primary activities in which females engage is the reading and writing of fan fiction. Whereas fan fiction can be explained as literary explorations and creative interpretations, its progressively popular subset of slash fiction – that is, homoerotic fan fiction – has raised the collective interest of both fans and academics from the get-go. When taking into account slash’s predominantly heterosexual female community of readers and writers and its same-sex narratives which subvert canonical media texts and characterisations, discussions relating to sex, gender and sexuality have become commonplace when the genre is discussed. At the same time, the genre invites scholars to engage with it: stories which address gender and sexuality and aggressively rewrite the source text provide quintessential examples of subversive and queered readings.

Discussions of slash have become central to fan studies scholarship, focusing on fan identity, feminism and the role of women within a creative community. Early slash fiction consciously utilises male protagonists and the male body to envision ‘ideal’ relationships and fantasise about sexual experimentations within the masquerade of a deeply committed relationship.

Joanna Russ’s essay “Pornography by Women for Women, with Love” (1985) encompasses the nature of its argument within the title itself. The provocative use of the word pornography is noteworthy in the context of passionate debates on pornography fought within the feminist movement. In addition to her overt pleasure within the text – ‘I love the stuff, I love the way it turns me on’[1] – Russ emphasises the empowering nature of sexual fantasy, particularly when coupled with a community of women – women as writers, editors and readers – free from the restrictions imposed by commercial culture.

For some women, fandom participation is credited with helping them to discover and learn about their own sexuality and gender beyond the confines of media and cultural representations of both. A study by Heather J. Meggers in Fan Culture: Theory and Practice (2012) offers an insight into the sexual liberation fandom participants have experienced through writing and reading these narratives:

‘I feel as though fandom has brought many things to my attention. It has allowed me to talk about/discuss things that maybe I wouldn’t talk to a person about face to face, but when shared through the common interest of the particular fandom are much easier to mention. […] I’ve found sexuality is much more fluid than I would have thought before I became active in fandom […] The internet allows people to talk about sensitive and difficult things.’[2]

Feminist critics, such as Russ, are fascinated by slash stories because they offer an insight into female sexual fantasy; formulating a medium that contains elements of sexual experience that mainstream media – such as the male dominated industry of pornography – purposefully excludes. For example: the lovers demonstrate an interest in each other’s minds and emotional states, not solely each other’s bodies. In the present day, there still remains a glaring lack of queer representation within mainstream franchises in spite of fan-fiction increasingly becoming a known quantity in the public eye. One particular pairing gaining notoriety at the moment is that of Poe Dameron and Finn of the Star Wars canon, playing on rumours that Star Wars could introduce its first gay characters. J.J. Abrams is behind this, stating:

‘Of course! When I talk about inclusivity it’s not excluding gay characters. It’s about inclusivity. So of course. I would love it. To me, the fun of Star Wars is the glory of possibility. So it seems insanely narrow-minded and counterintuitive to say that there wouldn’t be a homosexual character in that world.’[3]

Needless to say: fans have responded in droves. In turn, these fans have augmented the theories of Russ and her feminist counterparts by depicting Poe and Finn’s relationship as erotic but – above all else – a relationship of equals. Poedaaaayuremon writes:

“But Finn trusted Poe, trusted him with his life, mind and spirit. And as he stood there in the dim hallway, looking into the other man’s kind, warm eyes, he realised he completely trusted him with his body as well […] “You’re absolutely perfect,” Poe finally said, finally joining Finn on the bed, kneeling between his thighs […] “Absolutely beautiful, I mean it, Finn. You’re stunning”’.

Russ perceives slash as a response to the deeply felt desires of its female writers and its readers for ‘a sexual relationship that does not require their abandoning freedom, adventure and first class humanity […] sexual enjoyment that is intense, whole and satisfying […] and intense emotionally’[4] denied to women within commercial pornography, and further taken away from them as stories such as Fifty Shades of Grey are published as opposed to their slash fiction contemporaries. Poe/Finn once again serves as a leading example, as lillianwrites’ narrative Come Home details this particularly touching moment between the two:

The slash fiction genre embraces the possibilities of ‘a fluidity of erotic identification’[5]: a notion at the heart of the theoretical discipline of queer theory. The community of writers of straight, lesbian and bisexual women actively and self-reflectively discuss queerness, the social constructions of gender and the politics surrounding sexuality. Noy Thrupkaew notions in Media Reception Studies that ‘Slash enables its writers to subvert TV’s tired male/female relationships while interacting with and showing mastery over the original raw material of the show.’ Thrupkaew claims that such fiction produces a ‘richer sense of possibility than duplicating the well-worn boy/girl romances coughed up by most TV shows.’[6]

As opposed to interpreting the absence of romantic entanglements as heteronormativity, fans recurrently appropriate the empty spaces within the source text and redefine it against its social context. Female slash writers use and subvert the traditional gender paradigms, thus enabling female readers and writers to identify with both characters as they are writing a pairing of equals, rather than only finding familiarity with the stereotypical subversive female recurrently found in narratives.

‘“Hey, can I…?” It takes a moment for Poe to realise Finn is asking permission to move lower. Finn’s hands smooth over the cut of his hips […] “Yeah,” Poe breathes, too fast not to be desperate. He feels dizzy watching the open delight on Finn’s face, the slight knot of concentration between his eyebrows. “Yes, please.”’

Generally, in the public eye, heterosexual romance can only occur between individuals who are, inherently, not equal: with the woman as the weaker and more submissive partner. Slash fiction focuses on two men of equal power, with narratives exhibiting a fluidity between the two genders and traits which could be commonly associated to both. As heterosexual women can rarely have a truly equal relationship with a man, they write their desires onto their chosen slash fiction pairing.

Slash fiction, like romance, is commonly represented outside its reading communities as immature because of its undiscriminating and excessive investment in popular culture by women: a polar opposite to bro geek culture which is celebrated. Yet fan fiction is also represented as a secret substitute for real and romantic relationships. Culturally, women are socialised to view sex in terms of relational intimacy, romanticism, commitment and – above all – private: posing the question as to whether slash fiction is private due to its participants or its content. Designating some norms, behaviours and characters as normal and others as abnormal – and, in turn deviant, is connected to systems of power.

The notion of power is of particular interest to French philosopher Michel Foucault, who claimed that power ‘traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse.’[7] To control, punish and repress behaviours and identities, they must be identified in contrast to the supposed norm: in this instance, slash fiction is juxtaposed to commercial pornography and, in turn, the pleasures of women are placed under scrutiny. Foucault argues that ‘power is essentially what dictates its law to sex. Sex is placed by power in a binary system: licit and illicit, permitted and forbidden.’[8]

Slash writers have traditionally been understood as embarking on subversions of the dominant hierarchy, challenging gender norms and exploring both masculine and feminine experience. In turn, slash fiction (as a writing practice) and its corresponding female community has successfully carved out a discursive space that enables a freedom of sexual expression outside the reaches of hegemony, yet sadly occupying the illicit position in Foucault’s binary.

These overriding concerns of pleasure, power and their relationship to one another are central to academic readings of fan fiction and slash fiction in particular as narratives which demonstrate a more equal sexual relationship remain in the private sphere of fan fiction, whilst Fifty Shades of Grey gains publishing rights and popularity in part due to its saucy – and dominant-subversive – content. New York University professor, Katie Roiphe, suggests that Fifty Shades has become ‘the modern woman’s bedroom fantasy’[9], in spite of the wealth of slash fiction stories on the internet clearly suggesting otherwise.

The bottom line is, slash fiction enables its readers to fill in the gaps and bring to light the queer subtext: an act that hegemony and power prevents. The fact that slash fiction continues to be theorised as “resistant” and – in some cases – “deviant” is testament to a notion of reader/text engagements as interpretative as opposed to interactive, and to an overriding refusal to acknowledge where and when queerness manifests itself. Slash fiction has been valorised as a rebellion against the canonical text. It is a medium through which its writers can scavenge for textual crumbs that become the raw materials for creative reworking. The only governing body in slash fiction are the female writers and the readers who choose to join them for the ride.